Securing Passwords of your Social Media Accounts

Today social media has become a very important aspect for businesses and personal use. For some people their social media profiles have also become a source of livelihood. However, all of this comes with the very high risk of social media hacking. It would be catastrophic for a business if the account is hacked.

Hacking could be for the possible reasons such as

• Ransom to release the account.
• To change the handle name to earn your followers.
• Attempt to steal personal information of your followers.
• Send out compromising links to your followers which could lead to loss of face for the business or profile.

Hence it becomes very important for all users to ensure their accounts are safe. Here are some tips that can help you secure your password.

Be selective about the third party app

There are thousands of productivity tools and apps in app stores. We often download many of these to increase our productivity and efficiency. These apps ask for authorizing through social media login. If the app is not trusted, then it’s a risk to authorize such apps to gain access to your profile. Always read the finer details before granting permission to such apps. Most of the apps need minimum access. It’s a good habit to login and keep a tab of the apps that have access to your profile.

Passwords should be strong

A very important aspect of securing the social media profile is having a strong and secure password. A password should be strong enough that it cannot be guessed. It should not be the user’s name or the name of a loved one. Most people don’t take it seriously and their accounts are compromised. To ensure that your password is strong, you can use tools which can calculate and rate your password strength.

Installing Antivirus software helps

Malwares and Trojans can also cause your accounts to be compromised and hence you should use a good anti-virus software. Although ISPs provide a cover of security, there are chances that the security of the accounts can be compromised. Hence in this case a good anti-virus helps.

Enabling two-factor authentication

A lot of social media platforms have started using two factor authentication to secure the accounts. Here two components, normally comprising of the account password and confirmation code sent to your phone number or email are needed to unlock the account. This gives an account user double protection in case of a breach. Until the user doesn’t share the confirmation received on mobile/email, the account cannot be unlocked.

Move passwords to a management program.

There are many apps that allow you to remember the complex passwords and remember only one master password that will allow you access to the app. By storing all your complex passwords at one place you can sync it with all your browsers and devices so that the login is easy and the passwords are secure.

With so many social media platforms available, having a presence on each of them is a difficult task. It becomes even more difficult if you have to remember complex passwords of each account. In this case we end up using a weak, easy to remember password which can be guessed or hacked. Use the above tips to help secure your passwords

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